Book Club reading review for the Paris Wife.

 

A small but enthusiastic group of members met at The Black Horse Public House on American Independence day for our regular meeting,  The fact that it was  July the fourth had no real significance other than the book we were about to discuss was about the first marriage of celebrated American author Ernest Hemmingway. 

Our regular meeting place is currently undergoing refurbishment so we had to find an alternative. This popular pub was suggested by one of our Book Group as its central but unfortunately the large lounge area does not open until 7.15 our meetings start at 6.30 and the bar area was full. So as the first arrival I took up position in the outside area as a light mizzle of rain started to fall. We did eventually manage to secure a table and seats in the bar area.

A lot of our regular members were unable to attend as they were enjoying summer breaks in a variety of venues. However an amazing six of us managed to attend and most had either finished reading the book or were almost finished so we could have a reasonable discussion. 

Emma had kindly sent her views via our chat group, which I read out in full.

 The line “But when I wake again, the sentences are there waiting for me, shouting at me to be set down”: page 277. Emma remarked that this really resonated with her as a writer.  Sometimes everything just flows and it’s all there in my head and doesn’t take any effort to write. Sometimes it’s a bit harder.

This book was more unusual than our regular choices as it was fiction but the plot involved real people and real events.  I think Pauline’s comment summed it up for me:

 “It was neither nowt nor summit “Perhaps that reflects the fact that it was a mix of fact and fiction and as such did not measure up for either genre?

Debb was unable to attend but sent her comments;

 “ I found it difficult to empathise with the characters as they led such a privileged, affected lifestyle, but enjoyed dipping my toe into that era “

Most of us did agree that it was not a difficult book to read, Linda commenting that she had really enjoyed it. One incident being particularly memorable.  This was when Hadley cut her hair into the more fashionable shorter style in Paris. She then regretted it and didn’t like it but Hemingway did. The Jazz Era was successfully depicted and the contrast between these fast living, hard drinking liberated types and the stay at home domesticated wife was well portrayed.

The Paris wife is narrated obviously from Hadley’s point of view. Chronicling the five year marriage to the novelist, who was in fact eight years her junior. She is whisked away from her quiet, spinsterish life to live amongst the literary glitterati of the day.  These included Gertrude Stein, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound. Even if you were completely unaware of Hemingway’s numerous marriages I think it would not have taken too much guesswork to see where this partnership was heading. Hadley comes across as a perfectly decent person who loved her husband and their child but became the discarded first wife of a man who seemed to treat her badly. To the extent that at one point he actually complained to her for not understanding why he was cheating on her with her glamourous friend Pauline!

I think the writer has displayed Hadley’s character with dignity and you do sympathise with her as she loses everything she loves. If she had not been married to Hemingway she would just have been another devoted wife who’s boorish and self-centred husband trades in for a new one.

There was a lot of supplementary discussion around Hemingway himself. I suppose that was inevitable given his legacy of literature and lifestyle. It also transpired that most of the assembled members had not actually read any of his novels. I was surprised by this as we could name a lot of titles, but I suppose some have been made into films too. It did however encourage us to go back and read some of his work. In fact, Hemingway did write about this particular period of his life in A Moveable Feast in which he describes it as:

“How Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy”.

It’s a shame he didn’t realise this at the time.

We scored this book 3.5 out of 5.

August Book is The Tent the Bucket and ME by Emma Kennedy

 

                               

The Book we have chosen for September is Milkman by Anna Burns.

Pauline has agreed to compile the next list.

Our next Book Club meeting will be Thursday 1^st August, hopefully at the re-opened Aletaster/ Crown

June meeting: The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld

June's meeting was the first to be held in our new home at The Aletaster in a long while. After a one-meeting hiatus in July when the pub is being refurbished, we will look forward to regularly seeing each other in the back room and discussing books.

Rene Denfeld's The Enchanted was quite different to the types of book we often read here at Low Fell Book Group, but was generally well-received by all those who completed it. Set on death row and written from varying perspectives, the author tackled the subject matter and narratives in a clever and revealing way.

There was a certain other worldliness to the book, which was highly appropriate when you think of the prisoners being disconnected with society. This was created through a number of techniques, including keeping names hidden, which Lynda thought was particularly well used.

The character of the young blonde boy caught the interest of many members of the group and Ruth was pleased when he managed to escape his situation. She liked the way that he then thought about only having 20 months left and that they could be counted as 20 moons.

One of the things that we all were intrigued by was the mention of the horses running and the men with little hammers. Some of the group immediately linked these instances with the location of the prison near the San Andreas fault line, but others connected them to the inmates' state of mind and the rising tension around execution times.

For me, the real crux of the book was the idea as to whether the lady should try to save York or not, considering he expressly said he didn't want to be spared execution. It was a situation that brought in the ideas of duty, doing one's job, moral obligations and taking individuals' wishes into consideration.


We gave The Enchanted 4 stars out of 5
The next meeting will be on July 4th, when we'll be reading The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

April meeting: The Cut Out Girl by Bart Van Es

Today’s meeting was held at The Angel View and it was a wonderfully warm and joyous occasion, made special by the reunion with one or two lovely, much missed, members. We were discussing The Cut Out Girl by Bart Van Es.

This novel/biography is about the author’s journey into the history of his family which has previously been lost to him.

Some 4,000 Jewish children survived the war in hiding in Holland. Lien was one of just 358 who stayed with a non-Jewish family after 1945: she asked to return to the Van Eses. Bart van Es (the author) – an Oxford English professor who has lived in Britain since the age of three – had always known that his grandparents had sheltered Jewish children. But it was only after the death of his uncle in 2014 that he began to ask questions and made contact with Lien, now in her 80s and living in Amsterdam.

The writing is heroic in its endeavours to deliver the facts objectively, despite his personal connection. Some of the group felt that he was expert in delivering the narrative simply and that his use of understatement was effective. However, there was dissension when some felt he struggled to create narrative by writing in two different styles: one representing Lien’s voice and the other his own academic one. A couple of us agreed with a comment that it made difficult reading and that it was a bit of a slog at times, despite loving Lien’s story.
But, others felt strongly that they understood the need for the straightforward style used by Van Es to pass on information in contrast to the lyrical style used for Lien’s story.

Should one be unfamiliar with the historic background of this story, then reading this will put you right. I, for one, had no idea that so many vulnerable children were hidden from the Nazis. I had no idea that some were exploited and hideously abused by so many. The experiences which Lien went through left her numb and removed from reality. Her identity and feeling of self worth was clearly numbed by the process of being removed from her natural parents to live in another world of confusion and abject loneliness. Lien, clearly badly damaged by her experiences, questioned her existence:

“I ought not to be here”

This book is about the Holocaust and about the Dutch families saving the lives of Jewish children. Unfortunately it is also about those that turned those very families and children in to the Nazis.

The journey Lien takes as a little girl is fraught with danger and violence and we meet this extraordinary woman, having carried the burden of her experience throughout the years. Reaching the age of 80, she can finally begin to relate her experiences and share her understanding of what happened during this terrible time.

Van Es writes, “Without families you don”t get stories” - a profound statement in relation to this book.

The experience of getting to know Lien had been transformative for him and he describes it as “having changed me”.

All members felt that the book is well worth reading as a detective story which brings us to find the violators and the victims. All found it to be movingly descriptive and breathtakingly factual.

There are many characters in Lien’s story. Some are to be recommended for courage and commitment and without whom Lien would not have survived. Some characters come off really badly in the telling but they will be judged for their part in this unforgivable and terrible chapter in our recent history.

We awarded this book 4/5 stars.

Our chosen novel for May’s reading is The Enchanted by Rene Denfield to be reviewed on first Thursday in June.

February meeting: The History of Bees by Maja Lunde

I am probably going to be pretty partisan, writing this, I admit.  It was one of the options I put forward last year.  It was on my list because it was on my shelf!  I'd bought it in one of my sprees in Waterstones, (other booksellers are available), so it was going to be good to make time to read it.

But it does seem I wasn't entirely alone in enjoying it.  The ladies in the room who'd read it all gave it a good mark, with two of us going for 5/5. There were three 4s and a 3.  Overall score in the region of 4.2.

There were some interesting comments from the group.  one of us didn't fancy it at all, and was confused by the three different voices used.  But then they got the hang of it, and it moved along well.

We had a discussion about the different voices, how they were pretty much 'of their time'.  William spent his time completely overlooking his daughter Charlotte, who was the most interested in his study of bees, and creation of the new style of hive, whilst expecting the wayward Edmund to step up and share his father's passion.  To no avail.

George almost expected his son Tom to follow on in the farm, giving up his dreams of journalism and authorship, and it was only when the 'event' happened that Tom did come back.  His dreams were eventually realised, although he would probably never be aware how useful his writings were to be.

Tao was driven, and a frustrated scholar 80 years in the future. Had to leave her studies behind as a child to take up her duties in the orchards.  Her journey to discover what happened to her son (for me) was the most gripping element of the book. Her time in the hospital and in the library were so thought provoking that I feel I must go and plant more lavenders in the spring. 

The author kept the three stories running along well, each chapter pretty much ending on a cliff hanger. It might be a good exercise to read the book again, but to read all of William, then all of George, and then Tao. 

Whilst a couple of us found William irritating, I think it is a testament to Ms Lunde's skills that we still loved the book! We have a non sympathetic (anti)hero, at least for a third of it, and I still give the book full marks.  It really was a great page turner.  And a possible future history that didn't resort to zombies and gimmicks, pointing out that the smallest things could give rise to the biggest change.

We had some questions.  Were we meant to read more into the character Rahm?  Were there some undercurrents we should have focussed on more?  How did Charlotte end up bringing Edmund's baby to America?  What happened to Edmund, and Alberta?  Or maybe, that was just me..

Finally.  If you do decide to read this, do go for the actual book.  The Kindle version isn't as pretty...

Next meeting:  7th March, venue to be confirmed.

Book:               The Prince of Mist, Carlos Ruiz Zafon

April's book:   The Lightkeeper's Daughters, Jean Pendziwol

January meeting: Christmas book swap review

Six members met in The Library room at The Victoria Pub for our first meeting of 2019. We had apologies from some members who were still away enjoying seasonal festivities. Although a lot of reading had taken place over the period only two of the group had read and finished the book they had received from the gift exchange.

If members want to look at the complete list of the books given, please refer to the December blog. Two members were unable to attend the meeting but sent comments. Sue, who is reading Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman, commented that she loved the book, but it had taken a while to get into it.

Pauline was reading Euphoria by Lily King and she was also enjoying the book. Linda had read her book - I See You by Clare Mackintosh, but I doesn’t seem to have noted any comments. So in effect there is only one review, The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris read by Anne Marie, which made this month’s blog shorter than usual for this time of year.

There are some books you instinctively know you shouldn’t read; this was one of them. Like many people of my generation I had preconceptions of hideous, cruel and inhuman treatment of Jews and other people by the Nazis from the excellent documentary The World At War. Images of skeletal people in striped uniforms looking over barbed wire fences with blank expressions. More recent impressions were gained via a school visit to the camp by my daughter and the subsequent testimony of a survivor at my daughter’s school. I don’t think this true story should have been portrayed in the format of a book. At least not this book.

It is the love story of Lale Sokolov a Slovakian Jew who, due to his linguistic skills became the person who tattoos the prisoner numbers onto the arms of the inmates of this death camp. How his love for one such woman, Gita fuels his purpose to survive. This position was one of privilege and he received extra rations (which he shared with others) and the ability to move freely around the camp. As a story of love and survival I delighted in the fact that something positive and long term actually transcended this inhumanity, but I could not get over the niggling voice in my head that was my companion reading the book. Is this distracting from the horror of what most prisoners actually endured?

On a pure story level it is a heart-warming account of a resourceful, brave and charismatic hero who escapes death again and again. His character came over to me as Del-Boy who could actually speak several languages. If the setting had not been in Auschwitz- Birkenau I would not have continued to read it. I felt it was badly written and full of clichés. I think originally the author had intended the story to be seen as a film, so perhaps this explains some of the disjointed and often lazy writing.

However the memories are worth retelling but perhaps in a biographical format. There are a lot of other memorable incidents in the story that perhaps could have resulted in the development of a more powerful novel. The relationship Lale had with the SS officer who facilitated his romantic liaisons with Gita or perhaps more details about black market exchanges of food and medicines with those living outside the camp.

Obviously the book has been subject to all sorts of authenticity issues. But that would always have been the case with such a story, and Morris does say in defence this is just one person’s story. She argued she had written one person’s story of the Holocaust not the story of the holocaust. Although this is a reasonable point I personally feel you need to see the distressing reality of the camps to get a grasp of what actually happened. Anyone reading this in isolation would come away with a wholly inadequate and sanitised impression.

I would give this book a rating of three.

The book we are reading for January is The History of Bees by Maja Lunde

We also decided to take the book in second place as February’s choice and that was The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

Our next meeting will take place on Thursday 7th February 2019

Venue to be confirmed.

December meeting: Unlucky for Some by Jill McGown + Book swap

The December meeting of the Low Fell Book Group was a rather festive affair, with a meal at Primavera. Each member brought along a book that was gift-wrapped for Christmas and anonymous, so that we could all do a lucky dip and select a different read to take home with us.

But before we get into that, there was also the matter of that month's book, Unlucky for Some by Jill McGown, to discuss. It was an unusual novel for us as although it works as a stand-alone title, it is the 13th installment in a series and therefore contained a lot of detail on character development that seemed less important for those of us who hadn't read the previous 12 volumes.

Personally, I got rather bogged down in this and was pleased when the second murder took place, as it started to move things along. There were quite a lot of policemen and women to get used to and the names confused some members of the group. We also took issue with the fact that it had quite a lot of mistakes within the text. It didn't look like it had been proofread by anyone, let alone an editor, before it was published and the typos were quite frustrating.

In all, we gave it a two-star rating.

The books pulled out of the book swap were as follows:

Sue - Call Me By Your Name - Andre Aciman

Debb - Milkman - Anna Burns

Pauline - Euphoria - Lily King

Anne Marie - The Tattooist of Auschwitz - Heather Morris

Joan - How to Stop Time - Matt Haig

Joanne - A Walk Across the Sun - Corban Addison

Lynda - I See You - Clare Mackintosh

Ruth - The Humans - Matt Haig

Em - Killing Eve: Codename Villanelle - Luke Jennings

Jeanette - Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow - Peter Hoeg

November's meeting: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

This meeting was held on 1 November in The Library at The Vic, where we discussed Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. Eight of us were in the library, celebrating the anniversary of the book club. Fabulous spread laid on by us, for us. Loved the pina colada cake!

The book created a lot of different emotions across the group.  I found, once I was in it, I didn’t want to put it down, and I read the last 300 pages in one sitting.  However, others found it easier to put down!  We weren’t sure what to expect with the blurb on the back of the book – would middle class America be relevant to us?  It was a bit like American Beauty, the focus on the microcosm of the family.  But would anything really change?

We had a general discussion about the themes of motherhood that were raised in the book, from the point of view of the mothers (and adoptive mothers) and the daughters.  Whether leaving the baby at the fire station was really passing responsibility to the state, or should have been seen as a cry for help.  There were some thoughts that the outcome of the court case left us feeling a bit ‘meh’ – whichever side were named as winners, we’d have nodded and said ‘OK’.  Was that because the feelings of both sides were explained so well?  Or because we hadn’t really engaged with Bebe and Linda?

There were many questions raised:

·         Why did Mia never go back to her parents?

·         How seriously should we take Linda’s plans for reintroducing Mirabelle to her Chinese roots?

·         Why was Elena so hard on Izzy, and less so on Lexie?

We felt Mia had been the catalyst for so much – if she and Pearl hadn’t arrived in Shaker Heights then the toothpick incident wouldn’t have happened, the adoption wouldn’t have been challenged, the abortion wouldn’t have been misaligned, and it was Mia who spoke about the prairie fires.  “Remember what I said the other day? About the prairie fires? About how sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground and start over?” This is presumably what prompted Izzy to take action.

We had mixed emotions about Mia’s photography – did we want to see it because it was interesting, or did we not want to see it, because it sounded like a mess?!  The photos she left for the Richardsons – when had she been planning to gift them?  Mia and Pearl’s departure wasn’t a planned action.  Or was it pure luck that there was something for each of them?

Positives: intimacy of the various relationships; getting both sides of the story

Negatives: possibly needed a couple more rounds of editing; everything was wrapped up too quickly – “one paragraph changed everything” – had she met a deadline?

Scores on the doors? Seven voted (one of us hadn’t finished, quite). The range was from 2.5 to 4 (out of five). The average was 3.36. Some of us said we’d recommend it, others said straight to the charity shop!

Next meeting: 6 December – Venue to be advised. Discussing Unlucky for Some by Jill McGown.

NB – Also SECRET SANTA FOR BOOKLOVERS at this meeting.  Please bring a book, wrapped up for a lucky dip.  The books will be discussed at the January meeting.